In the Place where the Golden Rose Was Broken - Chapter 9
“You should quit smoking. It’s bad for your health.”
“I’ll take Miss Karen’s advice to heart.”
His insincere tone revealed that he had no intention of taking it to heart at all. Although the cocoa had finally cooled to just the right temperature, Karen only watched Arcturus cautiously.
He was right. She had caused Arcturus a lot of trouble.
…Whether intentionally or not.
“You never know. There might be a situation where I can repay the debt I owe you today.”
Arcturus, who was drinking coffee instead of smoking, seemed to pay no attention to Karen’s words. But Karen continued confidently, undeterred.
“If you ever need my help, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll help you with anything, no matter what.”
“……”
“A debt is a debt, after all.”
Arcturus tilted his head, looking at her. She had been acting so fearlessly that he thought she might have forgotten he was a ‘Duke’.
Well. Sorry to the person speaking shyly with a prickly tone, but he didn’t think he’d need any help…
Arcturus’s eyes naturally scanned Karen.
A woman who had just been harassed by a man with lecherous intentions, now defenseless in such attire in the same space with another man…
And she says she’ll help with anything if needed?
Arcturus straightened up from leaning against the wall and approached the woman who was just taking a sip of cocoa. He sat on the table so close it was almost touching the sofa, and lowered his gaze below her face, who was looking up at him with a startled expression.
Face, neck, and the cleavage visible through the parted robe.
“W-What are you looking at?!”
“You said you’d help with anything, no matter what.”
Flustered, Karen clutched her robe closed and blushed.
“No way, no way… What you want is…”
Watching the clear eyes that had been acting cat-like now filled with anxiety and wariness, Arcturus smirked and reached out to Karen.
Just as Karen was about to close her eyes, inhaling sharply,
Snap!
The index finger and thumb of the large hand approaching her face made a friction sound as they snapped.
“……”
Karen, who had been trembling with fear for a moment, blinked her eyes, and Arcturus couldn’t hold back his laughter. To be precise, he didn’t feel the need to hold it back.
As he let out a low chuckle, Karen narrowed her eyes into triangles and glared at him.
“It’s a lesson that you should be more cautious. If it wasn’t me but another man, they might have misunderstood with strange intentions.”
“The one who misunderstands like that is the strange one.”
“That’s right. It would be nice if the world was full of normal people.”
“……”
“But we live in a world where even trash wears human skin.”
Was she upset about being teased?
Karen’s face was still flushed. Arcturus didn’t avoid her clear eyes that seemed to resent him.
Just as a silence that seemed to have slightly different meanings for each of them fell.
Knock knock.
There was a knock at the door.
It was too early for the errand runner from the mansion to arrive.
Arcturus first withdrew his gaze from Karen and stood up from where he had been sitting on the table. As he passed by the sofa, the hems of their shower robes lightly brushed against each other.
Knock knock knock―
While Arcturus was walking to the door, impatient knocking sounds were heard again.
At those persistent knocks, Arcturus opened the door while making irritating assumptions in his mind.
“Ah, Arctur…”
As expected, Sierra was standing in front of the door.
“Miss Sierra Miller.”
Arcturus didn’t ask how she had found out about the room he had quietly booked separately. He could picture it without needing an answer.
His tiresome half-brother.
His even more tiresome half-brother’s fiancée.
The wearisome duty of playing family.
It had been briefly novel, but the familiar tedium had returned.
“Why are you here? Leaving the room where your family is…”
“Are you asking because you don’t know?”
“Is it because of me? Did you get a separate room because you were uncomfortable?”
Sierra asked obvious questions as if seeking confirmation, while glancing inside the room. Like she was trying to check for something.
Arcturus leaned against the doorframe, blocking her view.
“I wanted to rest comfortably alone, but you had to come chasing after me.”
“…So you were alone.”
Anyway, you can’t see the entire interior of a large suite just by looking in from the entrance. From Sierra’s position, the space where Karen was couldn’t be seen. But voices could be heard, so if she had any sense, she would keep quiet and not come out.
Arcturus knew Sierra’s persistence.
If she found out he was with a woman, how much more would she chase and torment him…
He was already feeling tired.
“Can I come in?”
“Didn’t you hear me say I wanted to rest alone?”
“I have something to say.”
“That’s your circumstance, Miss Miller.”
What Sierra Miller wanted to confirm was probably the existence of a woman who might be in the room.
She was being stubborn because she needed to see with her own eyes that there was no woman to be reassured. If she went inside and there was no woman, she would try to make unwanted advances.
“Miss Miller, it’s troublesome if you keep acting like this.”
“Don’t worry. Caetro is sleeping… No one knows we’re here like this.”
Arcturus had known Sierra Miller for quite a long time. A lot had happened during that time.
It wasn’t that Arcturus had never seen women who claimed to like him. But they understood his ‘rejection’.
Because they liked him, they noticed the coldness hidden beneath his politeness, and because they had normal thinking, they were hurt by his rejection and retreated.
Now, Arcturus was so focused on his business that he had no time, so there were no more confessions.
Sierra Miller was one of the five most persistent people Arcturus knew. If she had directed that persistence in another direction, she could have become a top talent in any field, which was a shame.
“Are you sure there’s really no one inside?”
“…Miss Miller.”
“Why won’t you let me in?”
“Because I want to avoid the situation of meeting secretly alone with my brother’s fiancée.”
He thought she had given up when she stopped chasing him and disappeared for nearly half a year.
Then one day, she appeared as his half-brother’s fiancée.
She was the woman who made him hate the family play he had been managing somewhat well to the point of wanting to curse out.
These unexpected situations created by Sierra Miller…
They were tiring and unpleasant enough to give him a headache.
“Arctur, are you sick…?”
When Arcturus rubbed his forehead, Sierra made a fuss. He wondered if she really didn’t know that she was the cause of his headache.
“Let me see.”
Sierra reached out towards Arcturus’s face. Just as the furrow between his brows, which was already deep, was about to deepen further at the approaching hand.
“Arctur.”
A soft and calm voice called Arcturus’s nickname.
But it wasn’t Sierra’s.
“What’s going on?”
Karen, who had come close, gently wrapped her arm around his.
Karen’s sudden action didn’t stop there.
“Oh my. We’ve been caught.”
As Karen, who had linked arms with Arcturus and pressed close to him, met Sierra’s eyes, she spoke in a slightly exaggerated voice with the ends of her words lifted.
Was she pretending to be his lover? When Arcturus just stared blankly without saying anything, Karen whispered to him, mouthing the words.
What are you doing? We should act together.
“Ha…”
Could this be that?
The promise to help without fail if help was needed.
“I’m sorry for lying to you, Miss Miller.”
He had tried to prevent her from getting involved in someone else’s tiresome situation.
If she volunteered to help, there was no need to refuse.
“I thought Grandfather would take too much interest if he knew.”
It would have been more troublesome if Sierra Miller had thrown a tantrum. But his brother’s fiancée showed the opposite reaction to what Arcturus had expected.
She didn’t scream, insist, or cling to him, nor did she throw a tantrum at Karen Chaner who was pretending to be his lover.
Sierra Miller just…
“L-L-Lie…”
She was dumbfounded.
Sierra seemed too busy denying reality in her head to cause a commotion. This was fortunate for Arcturus.
“Well then, I have some unfinished business with this lady, so if you’ll excuse us.”
Arcturus wrapped his arm around Karen’s shoulder demonstratively and, just before closing the door, showed Sierra a sincere smile for the first time, not a fake one.
“Have a good night, Miss Miller.”
It was quite a while later when Sierra’s ear-splitting scream echoed. But regardless of her reaction, the firmly closed door never opened again.
